1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image pickup apparatuses, image processing apparatuses, image processing methods, programs and recording media for composing panoramic images from images captured with an image pickup apparatus being moved.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, various camera systems for capturing panoramic images have been proposed. These camera systems are roughly categorized into multi-eyed camera systems in which the whole image of a wide field of view is captured at once using a camera with multiple lenses and single-eyed camera systems in which individual images constituting a wide field of view are continuously captured using a camera with a single lens being shifted in a shooting direction. A multi-eyed camera system has an advantage in that the whole panoramic image can be produced through an operation almost similar to that of a typical camera, but also has a disadvantage in that the camera system is expensive.
On the other hand, a panoramic image can be obtained at a comparatively low cost using a single-eyed camera system. Several methods have been proposed in which a panoramic image is captured using such a single-eyed camera system being shifted in a shooting direction. For example, a method to manually shift or rotate an image pickup system at a constant speed (refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-88754, for example) and a method to manually repeat the shift or rotation and stop of an image pickup system (refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-88811, for example) are disclosed. Further, a method to shift, rotate and stop an image pickup system by a stepping motor or the like is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-333396.